Asteroid City

A world-changing event one night spectacularly disrupts the itinerary of the Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention in an American desert town circa 1955.

Wes Anderson is always reliably Wes Anderson.

His familiar trove of daddy issues, along with his retro-aesthetic idiom of pastels colors, vintage details, and symmetrical compositions, are all so uniquely recognizable in the world of modern American movies, that we are regularly plagued not only with shallow retreads by untalented wannabes who mistake mimicry for artistry, but now with soulless AI-created vomit too, like “Wes Anderson’s Star Wars.”

But that’s a small price to pay for an artist with such a distictive voice.

I will admit that, at times, I too have grown a bit weary of his familiar earmarks, and that some of his films have not worked for me at all. Also, and this is just due to my own personal distaste, but I am not a fan of stop-motion puppets. I hate them. They creep me out. Regardless, I am somehow always drawn back into the fold of fandom with one of his next films, unable to deny the resonate power of his focus on simple human connection in a strange little world of beauty and wonder. I loved Rushmore, of course, and I loved Life Aquatic and Royal Tannebaums too, but I was shocked by how much I adored some of these later era films of his, like Moonrise Kingdom and The French Dispatch, films where he is often accused of embracing his usual litany of quirks and picadillos a little too much.

And now here we are with Asteroid City…

I will also admit to more than a little bit of trepidation going into this one. Right away, the film seems too overstuffed with celebrities, which can make their eventual appearances seem gimmicky. It also seems very VERY “Wes Anderson-y” just from the posters and trailers alone, which can sometimes be like eating a cake that is just too sweet… you want to like it, but you just can’t handle too much of it. But to be fair, I’ve only heard good things about this movie, from both fans and haters alike.

So, we’ll see how it turns out…

…and I am torn. Interesting. Beautiful from beginning to end, like vintage postcards come to life. This is pure art on the screen, sumptuous, as they say, that looks like how it feels to eat a creamsicle on a bright summer’s day.

But is it one of my favorites of Anderson?

Maybe not.

Asteroid City is a play, the production of which is being broadcast as an evening’s entertainment on the television in the 1950s. Asteroid City is a town in the middle of the desert, a wide spot on the endlessly unfurling American highway, that fabled next exit with food and gas and maybe an oddity or two for you to take a picture standing next to. Asteroid City is a bombastic soundstage production of a sweet slice of pure idealized 1950s Americana. Surreal worlds that all slowly bleed together.

The town that the play is set in is located not too far from an atomic bomb testing site, with fanciful mushroom clouds rising occasionally in the distance. It’s a town whose main claim to fame is the site of an ancient meteor crash, which is the reason why the town is hosting a Space Camp/Science Fair/Family Jamboree for young super geniuses and inventors and their incredible wonders, like jet packs and disintegration rays, all of which the U.S. Government happily looks forward to a stealing.

Into this town, a War Photographer, his genius of a son, and his three young daughters are towed, both their car, and the photographer’s wife (as well as the children’s mother) recently dead. The town soon swells with a motley assemblage of geniuses and soldiers, teachers and students, cowboys and parents, a movie star and several scientists, a kind of maximum allotment of the typical Anderson oddballs and quirky weirdos, all there for the convention, and all there with the fast patter, deadpan deliveries and broad reactions that Wes Anderson movies are known for, all of whom will have their respective worlds thrown into disarray, and their perspectives shifted as a result, after one dark night under the stars, while in the crater, gathered around the titular asteroid in that titular city.

Asteroid City is a film about grief, belief, and the redemptive power of human connection. It’s a story about the joy of creation, the joy of performance, and the joy of human invention, all while asking the question “What’s the point? Am I doing it right?” and ultimately, “what is the meaning of life?” With the ultimate answer simply being… to exist. To wonder. To find out. To see. To be seen. To love.

Fantastic.